Devils captain Bryce Salvador will be traveling with the team to Washington and Chicago, but he isn’t sure he’ll get into a game before Christmas.

Salvador has been sidelined since Oct. 22 with a non-displaced fracture in his left foot and is moving closer to a return.

“Definitely. It’s exciting. I’m pretty close here. Whether or not I play on the trip, we’ll see,” Salvador said after the Devils’ optional Friday morning skate. “It’s definitely good just to be back skating with the guys. That fact alone means I’m that much closer.”

He will not play in Washington. Although he holds out hope for the Dec. 23 game in Chicago, that may be a long shot. Salvador said both he and general manager Lou Lamoriello want him to be around the team and take part in the morning skates.

“I think it’s a mutual decision. I wanted to travel and Lou felt the same way,” Salvador said. “I think it’s important to get back into that game mindset and get back traveling and in the pregame skates and the game routine.

“Whether or not I play on this trip, I think it’s a valuable trip just to be on. If I play the 27th or the 23rd I need to be back in the routine.”

Coach Pete DeBoer said on Thursday that Salvador’s injury has sidelined him longer than expected. The veteran defenseman agreed.

“Definitely. I was thinking maybe 5-10 days,” Salvador said. “That’s just the way it goes sometimes. It just turned out that the bone it happened to be, if it wasn’t going to be healed properly and we didn’t do it right the first time it was going to be there the whole season.

“All our force and all our push comes off that bone. If it’s not healed, it’s just going to be broken the whole season. Then it gets to the point where you have severe issues. If it was a different bone in the foot it would’ve been a whole different story.”

Salvador added with a laugh: “All my speed comes from that bone.”

He said there is no pain.

“The foot is fine. There are no issues with the foot. It’s unfortunate that the bone I break is the bone you do all your pushing on. It couldn’t just be a toe or something.

“There hasn’t been pain for a while now. I’ve been skating for a little over a week. It’s just making sure it was healed. The type of bone it is, if you don’t let it heal it’s just going to keep nagging you.”

Although he wears skate guards, the injury occurred when Salvador blocked a Jack Johnson shot during the second periiod in Columbus Oct. 22.

“That’s just the way it goes. I’d hate to see if I wasn’t wearing it. Maybe they’d have had to amputate my foot,” he said.

Going on the road with the team is a big step.

“You have to be mentally ready as well. Just to get back having to travel, late nights and stuff like that. It’s all part of it,” Salvador said. “You have to respect the game, too. You can’t think you can just jump right back in after one skate. It’s important we take advantage of it.

“Practices have been really hard to come by. We’ve been focusing on making sure I get good conditioning, good skating with (strength and conditioning coach Mike) Vasalani in the mornings. Because of limited practice time it’s been more conducive for me to get in some hard skates.”

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When Salvador is ready to play, the Devils will have to find a spot for him in the lineup.

Normally, rookies Eric Gelinas or Jon Merrill would be in the line of fire. However, Gelinas has 15 points (four goals, 11 assists) in 26 games and has transformed the club's offense.

Merrill has just one assist (no goals) in 13 games, but has played well.

“Jon is a little different player. You’re not going to see the points that youy get out of Geli, but for me Jon has been very impressive," coach Pete DeBoer said. "He’s been safe, solid, steady. He makes the right decision 95 percent of the time. For a young guy at this level, that’s a pretty incredible completion rate for me.

“I like everything about his game. I think he has good offensive instincts. I think he’s capable of playing on your first power play unit down the riad as we put more on him. I like a lot about him and his game.”